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FUNERAL ORATION 



ON THE DEATH OF 



HON. DANIEL WEBSTER 



KY 



L 



AMASA McCOY. 



LETTERS FROM DISTINGUISHED SOURCES 

IN CONNECTION WITH THE DEATH OF HON. DANIEL WEBSTER. 



[From Hon. John K. Porter.] 

Albany, Nov. 20, 1852. 

My Dear Sir : I have just finished a second reading of your Funeral 
Oration on the death of Air. Webster, and cannot refrain from congratu- 
lating you on the masterly ability which characterizes the production. 
I have read it with more gratification than any of the other numerous 
addresses which have been occasioned by his death. It seems to mo to be 
in entiie accordance with his own views of his claims upon the present and 
after times. It speaks bodly, what ho felt deeply — the truth that his 
countrymen in refusing to requite his services by elevating him to the 
first office in the government, were equally unjust to him and to them- 
selves. It does justice to his character and position. It speaks of him 
as he should be spoken of in history, and this with a beauty and eloquence, 
which cannot fail to make it peculiarly acceptable to the friends of Mr. 
Webster. 

If the Oration should be published in pamphlet form, may I ask you to 
favor me with a copy. Yours very truly, 

Prof. Amasa McCoy. JOHN K. PORTER. 

[From Rt. Rev. Bishop Kip.] 

Albany, Nov. 23, 1852. 
Dear Sir : I received yesterday a number of the New-York Express, 
containing your Funeral Oration on the death of Daniel Webster; for 
which attention I suppose I am indebted to you. I avail myself there- 
fore of an early opportunity to thank you for it, and express the pleasure 
which it afforded me. I have no hesitation in saying, that I consider it 
the most able I have seen on this event; and well worthy of the com- 
mendation bestowed upon it by the editor of the Express. Your estimate 
of Webster's character and writings strikes me as being peculiarly 
felicitous. 

With my best wishes for your success in your literary career, I remain 

Yours, very respectfully, 
Prof. McCoy. W. 1NGRAHAM KIP. 



[From President Fillmore.] 

Washington, Nov. 24th, 1852. 
Sib : I had the honor to receive your note of the 16th inst., accompanied 
by a copy of your eulogy upon the late Daniel Webster, for which I beg 
leave to return you my thanks. My time has been so much occupied, 
that I have only been able to peruse a few paragraphs, with which I have 
been much pleased; and I doubt not you have done the subject ample 
justice. Respectfully yours, 

MILLARD FILLMORE. 



[From Hon. Edward Everett ] 

Department op State, Nov. 29, 1852. 
Dkar Sir : I have received to day your favor of the 26th, with the copy 
of your Oration which accompanied it. I am greatly indebted to you for 
giving me the opportunity of reading it in a corrected form. I have given it 
a hasty perusal, but amidst such incessant interruptions, and such pre- 
occupation, that I have not done justice to myself in reading it. I have 
laid it carefully by for a leisure hour, with the sure promise of a rich 
intellectual treat. What I have read, sufficiently shows me, that you 
have entered deeply into the great theme- 
Re pleased to accept my thanks for the kindness of your personal 
allusions, and believe me, with much regard, 

Very respectfully, yours, 

Edward everett. 

Prof. AjiASA McCoy, National Law School, 
Ballston Spa, N. Y. 



[From the Same.] 

Boston*, 1 Dec, 1855. 
DkabSib : I am greatly obliged to you for a copy of your admirable 
eulogy on Mr. Webster; and for giving me an opportunity of re-perusinii, 
in a revised form, what afforded me so much pleasure at its first appear- 
ance. • »•»•••*♦•«» 

T remain, dear sir, with much consideration, 

Very trulv. vmirs, 
Prof. McCov, Albany, N. V. EDWARD EVERETT. 



[From the family of the late Hon. Jeremiah Mason.] 

Boston, Nov. 25th, 1852. 
Dkar Sir : The pleasure our family circle (that of the late Jeremiah 
Mason — Mr. Webster's early friend) have received this evening, -while 
listening to an address of yours, delivered at the church in Ballston Spa, 
on the death of Mr. Webster, induces me to write to you to ask if the 
address has been published in pamphlet, and where we can obtain a num- 
ber of copies. 

Your eloquent and warm-hearted tribute to the memory of one who 
from infancy 1 have loved and revered, is my only apology for thus 
troubling you. With much respect, 

MARIANNE MASON CRAFTS. 
Prof. A.masa McCoy, Ballston Spa. 

[From the Same.] 

Boston, Jan. 3d, 1853. 

My Dear Sir : [ have sent you by the mail, several copies of your 
address on the death of Mr. Webster, for which we are indebted to' Mr. 
Samuel Lawrence, who was so much interested in it, that he had it printed 
in pamphlet form. I notice several errors in it, but the imperfect news- 
paper report will account for that . 

I am glad of the opportunity of sending a tribute so just and pleasant 
to friends at a distance. We have pleasant memories of the past summer, 
having been three times at Marshfield. and seen Mr. Webster in the home 
he loved so well. You admired the great man for his public acts, and so 
do I ; but I cannot remember the time I did not love him as my father's 
early and constant friend — a friendship over which for thirty years never 
passed a cloud. Believe me, respectfully vours, 

MARIANNE MASON CRAFTS. 

A. McCoy, Esq., Ballston Spa, N. Y. 

[From Messrs. Harper & Brothers.] 

New-Yokk, Nov. 30th, 1852. 
Dear Professor: «**»*»♦»» 

We should have been glad to have received your Oration in time for 
publication in our Magazine (as what we have published in our December 
number does not suit us) ; but unfortunately, our January number (ex- 
cepting the monthly summary) is already on the press. 

• • « * » •*'• • •* • 

Yours, truly, 

HARPER i BROTHERS. 

[From Rev. Dr. Jacob, Principal King's College, Province N. Brunswick.] 

King's College, Fredericton, N. B., 
6th December, 1852. 

Dear Sir : ♦ * I will not pretend to describe the admiration 

with which I have read this El isoan eulogy on the apotheosis of your trans- 
lated Elijah ; but content myself with avowing the gratification with which 
I receive your testimony, that possibly an Englishman, at the head of such 
an institution as this from which 1 write, might not have irrecoverably 
participated in Provincial prejudices against the merits and memory of a 
wise and good, and therefore great American. 

I shall transmit the Oration to ... . Having already conceived, and I 
may add, declared, his high regard for such republicans as Channing, 
Everett, Story and Webster, he will I am sure be far from regretting that 
such a soul and voice as yours, should have migrated to a country where 
you can be duly heard, felt, and appreciated. 



I have one remark to offer on the life, and another on the death of the 
departed. On the life, and its attributed imperfect ions— that it must he 
the maxim of the politician (and might not I add, of the moralist and 
divine !) to take men as they are, and make the best of them. On the death, 
with its painful and disappointing circumstances — that tragedy (as long 
since observed by the great critic), above all other representations, is 
adapted to purify the human soul. The martyrs of every description are 
the " chosen vessels" to communicate the riches of immortal truth, spirit, 
and life. 

Pray favor me with future communications, and believe me, Sir, 

Your sincerely obliged, 

ED WIS JACOB. 

Prof. Amasa McCoy, Ballston Spa, N. Y., U. S. 

[From Hon. Robt. C. Winthrop.] 

Boston, 6 Dec, 1852. 
Mv Dear Sir: Your obliging note of the 26th ultimo, was duly received. 
I have read with great interest the Oration delivered by you on the death 
of Mr. Webster. It is a most vigorous and eloquent production, and can- 
not fail to have been highly impressive in delivery. 

************ 

For the greater part of the last five and twenty years, I have enjoyed 
his intimate acquaintance and friendship, and nobody has a higher opinion 
of his intellectual ability. The services which he has rendered his country 
in time of need, have been in the highest degree important, and his printed 
volumes are a treasury of wisdom and eloquence. 

While therefore, I might differ from you in a few passages of your 
Eulogy, I appreciate the justice and appropriateness of its geneial tone. 

I venture to send you a copy of a speech of mine in the House of Repre- 
sentatives, just before I succeeded Mr. Webster in the Senate, which will 
give you my views on the question at issue, should you care to know them. 

Pray send me your Address in pamphlet, if it is so published. 

Thanking you once more, for your friendly attention, I remain. Dear 
Sir, with great regard, 

Yours faithfully, 

Amasa McCoy, Esq. ROBT. C. WINTHROP. 

[From Hon. Rufus Choate.] 

Boston, Dec. 11th, 1852. 
To Amasa McCoy, Prof, of Rhetoric. 

Dear Sir : I had read a report of your Funeral Oration [on the death 
of Daniel Webster] with great interest, before you were so kind as to put 
me in possession of a corrected copy, and I have reperused that with height- 
ened interest and appreciation. 

I hope it may not seem arrogant or indelicate to say so, but I regard your 
discourse on the whole, the most adequate to the great subject which I have 
read. 

Your limits, any limits, would not suffice for elaborating and consum- 
mating any important view on the grand aggregate of the conception you 
had of him. But the outline is perfect, I think, and within your limits the 
detail is just, vivid, and generous. 

What a tribute of eloquent feeling he has attracted and deserved ! 
Mv It is — omnibus— Jlebilis. 

If you publish your discourse in pamphlet, I should be most happy to 
know where I can obtain that also. 

I am most trulv, Your obedient servant, 

RUFUS CHOATE. 

[From Mayor W. W. Seaton.] 

Washington, 25th Dec, 1852. 
My Dear Sir: I feel very sensibly the honor you have done me, in the 
present, namely, of a copy of your admirable Oration on Mr. Webster. 

I have read the Oration with pleasure and instruction ; and if we durst 
venture to discriminate among the multitude of similar productions, from 
the pulpit and chair, which have reached us, I should be glad to place yours, 
or at least some portions of it, in the National Intelligencer. It would be 
read with deep gratification by all of Mr. Webster's countrymen, and 



c?p< cially by all who were honored v< itfa his friendship, and who enjoyed, 
ae I did for so many yean, the privilege of familiar intercourse with him, 
and thereby learned to appreciate fully bis great and shining qualities of 
head and heart . 

I am, Bir, your obliged and very obedient servant, 
To Prof. Am a> \ M( Coy. W. W. SEATON. 

[From Hon. Joseph Howe, Provincial Secretary of Nova Scotia.] 

Halifax, NovaSootia, July 12, 1853. 
,Mv Dkab Sib: I have read with infinite gratification, your Funeral 
Oration on Webster. To depiota gnat man truthfully, there must be ele- 
ments of greatness in the artist. W ebster eould not have pronounced a more 
eloquent eulogium upon himself. • »••<»• 
Pray send me from time to time, any thing of yours that is printed. 

} ours truly. 

JOSEPH HOWE. 

[From Hon. Samuel Lawrence.] 

Boston, Jan. 17th, 1854. 
My Dbab Sib: Your very kind favor of yesterday is at hand, and I hasten 
to reply : thanking you for the Canadian notices of your lectures, and a copy 
of Mr. Choate's note to you. 

1 fully agree with him in his estimate of your Oration on the whole. It is 
the In st I have seen, always excepting his own, at Hanover, last summer. 
Should you ever come to this place, I beg of you to let me have the 
pleasure of seeing you; and remain most truly, 

Your obedient servant, 
Prof. Amasa McCoy, Ballston Spa, N. Y. SAM'L LAWRENCE. 

[From Hon. William II. Seward.] 

Washington, July 31, 1851. 
Dear Sir: ••«* « ♦ « . '. . 

I beg to thank you even so late as this, for your kindness in sending me a 
copy of your Eulogium on Mr. Webster. 1 read it with un mingled admira- 
tion. It is indeed a performance of rare ability ; and while it is faultless in 

execution, there is no error of opinion in it, which the occasion and the 
circumstances do not fully excuse. 

I am, Hear Sir, very respectfully, 

Your Obedient Servant, 
Amasa McCoy, Ballston Spa, N. Y. WILLIAM H. SEWARD. 

[From Fletcher AV ebster, Esq.] 

Boston, Aug. 3d. 1S54. 
Amasa McCoy, Esq., Dear Sir : I am very much your debtor for your 
kind note of 30th July. 

four statement that it was his published writings that made you an 
American and a Republican, is very grateful; and is perhaps the highest 
compliment that eould be paid to him, or his memory, by any individual. 

The fact I shall, with your leave, produce in the forth-coming volume; and 
perhaps, it will best appear by the publication of your note to me. 

1 remember the same remark to have been made byyou in your most 
eloquent and beautiful address. 

i shall proceed with the work as rapidly as I can. and hope to do no dis- 
credit to the subject. Renewing my thanks to you for your letter, 
I am, my dear Sir, very truly yours, 

FLETCHER WEBSTER. 

[From Chief Justice Williams, of Connecticut.] 

HABTFOBD, May 28, 1856. 
DEABSlB : I beg you to excuse me for t hat, f 6r which I cannot excuse 
myself, and I will at this late hour return my cordial thanks for the copj of 
your eloquent address on the death of Mr. Webster. I read it with great 
pleasure, and think it worthy of the high encomiums it has received. It 
came too at a time, when 1 «:\< about uniting more permanently, many 
pamphlets On that subject is a volume; among Which I need not say yours 

will occupy a prominent place. 

1 am very respectfully yours, 

Amasa McCoy, Esq., Albany, N. V. THOMAS S. WILLIAMS. 



FUNERAL ORATION 



()\ TIIK DEATH OF 



HON. DANIEL WEBSTER, 



DELIVERED AT A COMMEMORATION IN THK 



PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, BALLSTON SPA, X. Y., 



MONDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 8, 1852. 



BY AMASA McCOY. 



THIRD EDITION. 



BOSTON : 

C. C. P. MOODY, PRINTER, 52 WASHINGTON STREET. 

1856. 



PUBLISHER'S PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION. 



The first pamphlet edition of this Oration was printed from the 
newspaper report to the order, and at the expense, of Hon. Samuel 
Lawrence, of Boston; one of the most devoted personal friends and 
admirers of the great deceased. The whole edition was circulated in 
Boston and elsewhere, among those to whom the blow, as in the case 
of Mr. Lawrence, came nearest and heaviest. This would have 
spoke well for this tribute in honor of Mr. Webster, had there been 
no other in print. But it makes it much more emphatic and pointed, 
when we recall the fact that very many similar efforts were already 
accessible in pamphlet form. And from a letter, written on the 
birth-day of Mr. Webster, 1856, we gather that lapse of time ha u 
only confirmed Mr. Lawrence's first opinion: "I fully agree with 
Mr. Choate in his estimate of Mr. McCoy's Oration. It is the best 
I have seen, always excepting his own at Hanover, last summer." 

The death of Webster so stirred the emotions of his contempo- 
raries, that the most eloquent and gifted of the American Orators 
who survived him, exceeded themselves in doing him honor,- and the 
undersigned cannot refrain from expressing the hope, that some pub- 
lishing house will put in one or two volumes all the best of these 
numerous tributes. Hon. Rums Choate, in his admirable Oration 
delivered at Dartmouth College, 27th of July, 1853, thus confessed 
himself struck with the splendor and richness of this aggregate tri- 
bute: — 

" And yet I hardly know what there is in public biography, what there is in litera- 
ture, to be compared in its kind, with the variety and beauty and adequacy of the 
series of discourses through which the love and grief, and deliberate reasoning admira- 
tion of America for this great man, have been uttered. " 

Hon. Edward Everett, at the Celebration of the Seventy-Fourth 
Anniversary of Mr. Webster's Birth-day, Boston, 17th January. 
1856, expressed his sense of the extraordinary merit and enduring 
interest of these Orations, as follows: — 

" I do not rise to pronounce the eulogy of Daniel Webster. That work was 
performed, at the time of his lamented decease, in almost every part of the country, 
and by a greater number of the distinguished writers and speakers of the United States 
than have, in any former instance, with the single exception of Washington, paid this 
last office of respect to departed worth. It was m many cases performed with extra- 
ordinary ability. ****** whose performances, besides doing noble justice 
to this great theme, will take a permanent place in the literature of the country." 

The Publisher of this pamphlet feels very certain that it will inte- 
rest the friends of Mr. Webster, and the admirers of this Oration 
(the only considerable one, as far as he knows, by a person of foreign 
birth.*) when he informs them that among the orders on file for this 
his Third Edition, is one of 200 copies from a distinguished citizen in 
California; and who says in writing from San Francisco, that he has 
" read it with such delight and admiration, that I desire to put a copy 
in every Division Room and Library in the State of California, where 
I believe, it will be read and preserved with much interest." 

C. C. P. MOODY. 
52 Washington Street, Boston. 



* Mr. McCoy is now a naturalized citizen of the United States ; is Professor of 
Rhetoric and Oratory in the Law School of the Albany University, and Editor of the 
distinguished Temperance Monthly, The Prohibitionist, published at Albany, by 
the New York Slate Temperance Society. 



►UBLISHER'S PREFACE To SECOND EDITION. 



Thk undersigned, having issued a pamphlet edition of the follow- 
ing Oration, for private circulation by au eminent merchant of this 
city, very frequent enquiries have been made of him for extra copies. 
These, together with the high commendation bestowed upon it by the 
most eminent friends of Mr. Webster, have induced the publication 
of this second edition. The New York Express, the first paper in 
which the discourse was printed, accompanied the report with these 
remarks : — 

" We publish to-day a beautiful oration, delivered by Amasa McCoy, Esq.. of Ball- 
sum Spa, N. V.. and lor the past two years Professor of Rhetoric in the National Law 
School. The style of the orator in the delivery was faultless, and so riveted was the 
attention of the vast audience, that a pin might have been heard to fall in any part of 
the edifice daring the pronouncing of the eulogy. Professor McCoy is yet a young 
man. and he has bat to pursue the path he has marked out, to acquire a world-wide 
renown as an eloquent public speaker." — New York Express. 

It is an admirable oration. It will be read with deep gratification by all of Mr 
Webster's countrymen.— Hon. W. W. Section, Ed. National Intelligencer. 

A more sublime oration, a more splendid burst of eloquent eulogium, we never had 
the pleasure of perusing — St. John (N. B.) Courier. 

I have no hesitation in saying, that I consider it (he most able I have seen on this 
event, and well worthy the commendation bestowed upon it by the Express. His esti- 
mate of Webster'-: character and writings strikes me as being singularly felicitous — 
Rev. W. Ingraham Kip, D- D., of Albany. 

I have read the oration with great interest. It is a most vigorous and eloquent pro- 
duction —Him. Robert C. Winthrop. 

After reading it amid incessant interruptions, I have laid it by for a leisure hour, 
with the sure promise of a rich intellectual treat. Professor McCoy has entered deeply 
into the great theme.— Hon. Edward Everett. 

1 have re-perused Prof. McCoy's Funeral Oration on Mr. Webster with height- 
ened interest and appreciation. I regard this discourse, on the whole, as the most ade- 
quate to the great subject which I have read.— Hon. Rufus Choate. 

Though these are but a part of the evidences of the favor with 
which the Oration has been regarded by those most competent to pro- 
nounce upon its merits, they are surely more than enough to warrant 
the publisher in believing, that in making it accessible to the public in 
a better form than it has yet appeared, lie is adding, in his way, to 
the numerous tributes to the illustrious deceased, and administering 
to the gratification of his sorrowing countrymen. 

C. C. P. MOODY. 
52 Washington Street, Boston. 



1)1 RGE. 



[As a part of the preliminary exercises, the following Dirge composed for 
the occasion by the distinguished American poet, Ai.fked B. Street, Esq., 
of Albany, was sung by the Choir, in a very solemn and pathetic manner, 
to the venerable tune of 'Old Hundred.'] 

A shade like night, is o'er us flung; 
Our Eagle's wing in grief is hung; 
Our brightest star the sky hath cross'd! 
[ts lordliest plume that wing hath lost. 

But though the orb hath left our eyes, 
Ft but glides on to future skies; 
And memory of the plume will bring 
New strength to lift that spreading wing. 

His stately form in death is laid ; 
But his proud glory ne'er shall fade. 
On Time's last wave, no brighter fame 
Shall glow than that of WEBSTER'S name. 



ORATION. 



The tolling bells of twice ten thousand stee- 
ples, proclaim that we have met with no ordinary 
loss. Populous and opulent cities, thousands of 
miles from each other, celebrate these obsequies 
with all that can engage the imagination, and 
impress the heart. Even in a retired village, 
which makes no pretensions to parade, and 
where there is nothing of magnificence, save 
the sombre pomp of nature herself, the citizens 
of Ballston Spa, without distinction of party ; 
the Board of Supervisors representing every 
town in the County of Saratoga ; the members 
of the Ballston Institute, coming from different 
sections of the State ; the students of the Na- 
tional Law School, representing more than half 
the States of the Union ; have assembled under 
these sable hangings, to join in the sublime 
lament which is now being sung by the nation. 
These expressions of public sorrow, however 



8 

numerous and solemn, can be of no use, it is 
true, to the dead. But they may justly admin- 
ister to the consolation of the living. To echo 
words once uttered by those lips, which because 
they are sealed in death, we are now convened : 
" the tears which flow, and the honors that are 
paid, when the founders of the Republic die, 
give hope that the Republic itself will be im- 
mortal." 

Daniel Webster, Secretary of State in the 
United States, died at his farm at Marshfield, on 
the morning of the 24th of October. Ten days 
ago, his mortal remains were laid away in his 
family vault. At the time of his death he had 
passed, some nine months, the limit assigned by 
the Psalmist to mortal man. Yet had we never 
come to associate with him the idea of decav. 
The whole of this long period was filled up with 
busy and laborious days in the service of his 
country. He was born, he lived, he died, in a 
century and a country of Freedom. He first 
saw the light amid her mountain home, and he 
died where she lifts her radiant form to enjoy 
the ocean breeze. 

His death, since its occurrence, has engrossed 
the columns of the press ; it has put the marts 



9 

and the harbors of commerce in mourning ; it 
has been solemnly noticed by the bar and the 
bench in the Courts of Justice ; in the depart- 
ments of State ; and in the mansion of the Exe- 
cutive. And what bespeaks still more a public 
sense of calamity, it even stopped, and that 
within a week of the day of ballot, the whole 
machinery of a National Election. 

Meantime, while we have been witnessing 
this first spontaneous outburst of sorrow, and 
while more elaborate and sumptuous expressions 
are but just beginning, these unwelcome tidings 
have crossed the Atlantic, and deepened the 
grief of a nation already, like ourselves, clothed 
in the habiliments of mourning. The event by 
this time has been noticed with honor in hun- 
dreds of English journals; it has afflicted the 
members of the profession in the courts of West- 
minster ; it has been mentioned on the floors of 
Parliament ; it has penetrated the cloisters of 
Oxford and Cambridge. And before the action 
yet to be taken by the State Legislatures, the 
Supreme Federal Judiciary, and the Houses of 
Congress ; the intelligence, in the order of its 
course, will have carried grief to the heart of 
every lover of freedom in the nations of Europe ; 



Ill 

and where less will be expressed than felt, be- 
cause of the padlock on the lip of Liberty. So 
that, after all that has been done, and all that 
will be, that which will not be done, will re- 
dound most to the honor of the great American. 
The public journals have certainly laid the 
country under many obligations, by their incre- 
dible industry in collecting facts respecting this 
extraordinary life. By so doing they have not 
only contributed vastly to our edification, but I 
submit that every fresh particular only increases 
our respect for the character of the deceased. 
The colossal proportions of his intellect had be- 
come a proverb ; but the impression I think is 
now general, that great injustice has been done 
to the qualities of his heart. The tongue of 
scandal had been busy in bold affirmations res- 
pecting great frailties and infirmities. No re- 
flecting man ever doubted that much of this was 
the invention of political rancor, and a curious 
proneness there is to seek for weakness in the 
great. Whatever of this is true, no one should 
now seek to extenuate, out of regard to the 
influence of example. The ancient maxim, 
that nothing should be said of the dead but 
what is favorable, the better ethics of our time 



11 

justly repudiate. History, when true to its 
mission, is a dread tribunal ; and while it will 
not allow the least injustice to the dead, it will 
not be unmindful of its duty to the living. In 
the mean time, it cannot be denied that many 
persons whose minds had been abused, are taken 
by surprise by the numerous and authentic evi- 
dence of the genial excellencies which gave 
warmth and coloring to his character. The 
nation had been so engrossed with the grandeur 
of his public career, that few were prepared for 
any such statement as that his greatness dilated 
when he entered the social circle. And it is fit 
in this temple of worship to invite those, if any 
such there be, who have assumed to use his 
name to give respectability to their own delin- 
quencies, to ponder now upon some other things. 
Let them remember that vulgar infidelity never 
polluted his lips. That nothing ever escaped 
him in his public speeches, nothing in private 
conversation, disrespectful to the truths of Christ- 
ianity. That he was a devout believer in 
divine Revelation. That he studied the scrip- 
tures more than many whose high vocation it is 
to expound them. That he was faithful in his 
attendance upon the services of the sanctuary. 



12 

That the attributes oi' the Deity, as displayed 
in his works, overflowed his capacious nature 
with the enthusiasm of devotion. 

And for mv own part, 1 join with those who 
say that none of his great deeds in life, give 
them such ideas of moral grandeur, as the man- 
ner of his death. I see him shake the Capitol 
in his wrath, when a violent hand is laid upon 
the Constitution : and vet it does not affect me 
with such an elevated sense of human greatness, 
as to mark the meek serenity with which he suf- 
fers the pangs of death, and abides the good plea- 
sure of his God. His implicit faith in the blood 
of Christ, his parting blessings upon his family 
and domestics, his unmurmuring resignation in 
the last mortal agony, — tell me, ye who minis- 
ter at the altar, was not here enough to have 
suggested to the Christian poet, all his sublime 
conceptions of ' the chamber where the good man 
meets his fate V 

When Mark Anthony appeared before the 
citizens of Rome, to pronounce his funeral 
oration over the dead body of Caesar, his first 
endeavor was to refute the principal accusation 
of Caesar's enemies. A grave charge has been 
preferred against the deceased whom we deplore, 



lo 

in connection with one of his last acts in the 
Senate, and which it is not to be concealed, in 
the minds of many, and of some before me, 
rests at this moment as a cloud upon his 
memory. The charge is now of over two years' 
standing. What men have urged and insisted 
upon again and again, becomes rooted and 
grounded in their very nature. The matter in 
question has become a part of that feeling, 
hardly less inveterate than religious bigotry, the 
spirit of party. How idle it would be to think 
of removing it, I am well enough persuaded; 
but that the subject would be referred to on such 
an occasion might naturally be expected. I 
deem it expedient to touch upon it in very brief 
terms at this stage of my remarks. 

Some persons go as far as this. The Com- 
promise Measures adopted by Congress in 1850, 
tended to perpetuate a great evil. Evil should 
not be done even to sustain the arch of the 
Union. To such persons I would say, what I 
may not now reason out, that there are nume- 
rous evils which are the natural consequences 
of society. But to disband society would be a 
greater evil. Whoever remains in society, then, 
acts upon the principle of choosing the least of 



14 

evils. Society is held together only by mutual 
compromise. The science of governing to a 
great extent, is but the science of expedients. 
The philosopher deals only in abstract truth, and 
may always be consistent with himself. But 
between the theories and the practical action of 
legislators and rulers, there must sometimes be 
a variance. 

Such extreme ground, however, is probably 
occupied b} r no one present. You frankly admit, 
if }*ou could believe that the Compromise mea- 
sures were essential to the integrity of the 
Union, you would no longer condemn those who 
voted for them. But you hold that there was 
no danger of any section seceding ; and I under- 
stand your chief ground of confidence is this : 
that secession would have been contrary to 
their own interests. I ask, is it an unheard-of 
thing that men should act contrary to their own 
interests? especially men of pride and spirit, 
and most especially when they believe, or even 
imagine that any injustice is being done them? 
Were there not thousands of men, as intelligent 
and as honest as vourselves, who did believe 
some such compromise necessary ? And have 
not multitudes who then condemned such legis- 



15 

lation, since avowed their approval? Was not 
the measure acquiesced in by hundreds of min- 
isters of religion, whose learning and piety 
make them the objects of reverence? Did a 
majority of both houses of Congress, did so 
many of their number, of patriotism hitherto 
above suspicion, walk in open day to the sham- 
bles of corruption, and traffic away the accu- 
mulated honor of life ? Did Millard Fillmore 
do so ; did Henry Clay ; did Daniel Webster ? 
When Nullification was coiling its fatal folds 
around this body politic, entire fruit of the revo- 
lution, and just about to send to its extremities 
the icy chill of death, you need not be told 
whose mighty arm it was that slew the monster 
as with a battle axe. ' If you have writ your 
annals true, alone he did it.' This great cham- 
pion of public liberty, whose whole fame was 
associated with its defence, and who saw that 
many would now brand him as an apostate and 
traitor — do you believe that he was condemned 
also by his own conscience ? Have those who 
have been so unsparing of censure, ever summed 
up the penalty he paid for taking this step ? 
Reproach, reproach, from how many quarters — 
with what bitterness — and how long sustained ! 



L6 

And this from oldest friends, upon whom the 
heart had learned to lean for support; The stab 
of Brutus, you know, that was the unkindest 
cut of all. If then, my friend and fellow-citi- 
zen, you cannot yet view this matter as I do, 
but must still insist in your heart, that he was 
guilty of a grievous fault, — at least, you will 
not refuse to remember how grievously he hath 

CD %/ 

answered it. And while no powers of persua- 
sion can efface from your memory the single 
evil you have contended he did, that American 
heart within you, whose depths he has so often 
stirred as with notes of battle and of victory, is 
surely too just and magnanimous to insist upon 
interring with his bones all that he ever did of 
good. 

In common with the whole country, fellow- 
citizens, you have frequently reviewed, since its 
termination, Mr. Webster's great career. If it 
had not occurred to you before, you must now 
be impressed with the fact, that of the many 
distinguished citizens of his day, few owed less 
to fortuitous circumstances. Mr. Webster was 
not a man whose lame grew up over night. 
He owed his eminence to no accident, no com- 
promise of factions, no chance of battle, no 



17 

freak of fortune. None of his influence was 
acquired by flattering the people, but only by 
serving them. He more than once opposed a 
farther introduction into the government of the 
popular element; and in doing so, used the 
whole weight of his influence and talent. He 
not only repudiated the idea of a Democracy ; for 
that is dreamed of by no one. But he evidently 
had faith in nothing less than the representative 
Republic, with all its checks and balances, as 
framed by the fathers. He acquired none of his 
distinction then, by introducing sweeping re- 
forms in government. Indeed I undertake to 
say, that the most general characteristic of that 
whole career which the country is now contem- 
plating with so much reverence, is that of the 
great conservator. He borrowed no honor from 
office, for his mere entry into it covered it with 
lustre forever ; and whoever might be elevated 
to the Presidency, Webster still continued the 
most eminent citizen of the Republic. The 
explanation of Mr. Webster's fame, consists 
simply, in wonderful native endowments, dis- 
ciplined by the last severity of culture, and dis- 
played in professional and public service. To 
eloquence, to law, to civil polity, he devoted 



18 

more study, than most public men to all united. 
If Button, as he said, owed ten or twelve 
volumes of his writings to his servant, who 
forced him to rise at six, — it would be interest- 
ing, if it could be ascertained, to know what 
proportion of Mr. Webster's greatness is ascrib- 
able to his having risen at four. 

The extinction of this great light afflicts no 
class more sorely than that scattered brother- 
hood who make up the republic of letters. In 
our part of that realm he was chief. No other 
man in this country ever exercised in so large a 
measure that sway over the human mind which 
belongs to literature. His supremacy over men 
was in proportion as they were educated. In 
Boston he reigned in all the sovereignty of rea- 
son. Had this whole country been made up of 
Bostons — he would long since have been called, 
by acclamation, to the Chief Magistracy of the 
Union. 

More than any other American of his day, 
more than any Englishman, Mr. Webster's style 
was chaste, lucid, and perspicuous. Every sen- 
tence was a crystal. He scattered among the 
people no ambiguous words. When Webster 
had spoken, you might differ from him indeed : 



19 

but you knew his meaning. Whatever he 
touched, he not only adorned, but he shed over 
it a perpetual light. Such was the literary 
excellence of Mr. Webster's speech, that its 
influence did not cease with its delivery. There 
was always a charm over the printed report, 
that attracted and captivated innumerable read- 
ers. There were men of his day, and Mr. Clay 
was one of them, who exercised a more talis- 
manic sway over their immediate hearers ; but 
who spoke with such commanding eloquence to 
the nation ? When it was known that Webster 
was to speak, is it any exaggeration to say that the 
Republic was one eager auditory ? Give me a 
name if you can, for glory like this : never to 
have risen, but millions hung upon his lips; 
never to have sat down, but millions were 
wiser men and better patriots. Webster's 
printed speeches were re-read, and put carefully 
away, and committed. How many of his sen- 
tences, laden with noble truth and glowing 
patriotism, have become familiar as household 
words ! Plutarch informs us that so thoroughlv 
were the priests instructed in the writings of 
Numa, that the law-giver, assured that they 
would be preserved in spirit and in letter, 



20 

ordered them to be burned with his bod v. Such 
is the impression made upon the minds of his 
countrymen, by the productions of Webster, 
that had all written record of them been in- 
terred with his remains, every principle and pre- 
cept could be collected from the memory of living 
men ; and all his great orations, I doubt not, 
could be restored to print, word for word. 

His sentiments are not only engraven on 
the minds of his countrymen, but they blend 
themselves with the surface of the country 
itself. Spots which the blood of our fathers has 
consecrated, this great master of eloquence has 
made classic. Even Bunker Hill, of hallowed 
memory, has borrowed additional interest and 
renown from his transcendent powers of speech. 
They have given birth indeed to the noblest 
monument of that eventful day. Any country, 
any people could have erected the granite obe- 
lisk. Of his contemporaries, who but the great 
New England orator could have delivered such 
discourses? It is not intimated that Bunker 
Hill Monument is not everything that could 
reasonably be asked. Lifting itself from that 
memorable summit, "rising over the land, and 
over the sea, and visible at their homes, to three 



21 

hundred thousand citizens of Massachusetts," it 
is indeed a stupendous structure. And yet it is 
less imposing and majestic than the orations 
pronounced there by Webster. "Towering 
high above the column which our hands have 
builded, beheld, not by a single city, or a single 
state, ascends the colossal grandeur" of these 
sublimer remembrancers. 

The influence of Mr. Webster's speeches was 
not limited to this country. In this connection, 
permit one born under another government, and 
among a people at that time prejudiced beyond 
belief, to say that my own experience furnishes 
me with data, which from the good fortune of 
your birth, you would probably omit to take into 
the account. Happening to fall in with these 
great productions, I not only bowed in homage 
to the talents of the author, but immediately 
conceived respect, then admiration, and before 
I got through, enthusiasm and reverence, for the 
history, the great men, and the institutions of 
America. I said to myself that in the wonder- 
ful attributes of this great orator, and the heroic 
virtues of his countrymen whom he celebrates, 
is more than realized, what in Berkley, a cen- 
tury and a quarter ago, seemed an extravagant 



22 

flight, even tor poetry; that here should rise up, 
and here should be sung, 

"The good and great inspiring epic rage. 
The wisest heads and noblest hearts." 

Thus does it happen, that for the high privi- 
lege of American citizenship, for such a proud 
distinction, and crowning felicity, I am indebted 
to the sway of his living words, to whom in 
death, from the fullness of a swollen heart, I 
now make this poor acknowledgment. Plato 
thanked heaven that he was born in the same 
age with Socrates. What a heart should I have, 
if it did not overtiow with gratitude, that I have 
not only been thus far contemporary with the 
deceased, have experienced the divine luxury 
of his thought, and heard two orations from his 
lips, but that I am now entitled against the 
world, to claim a share in his immense renown. 

" Praise enough 
To lill tli' ambition <>f a private man, 
Mint Webstkr's language was his mother tongue. 
And Clay's great name compatriot with his own.'' 

I have spoken of my native Province as at 
that time prejudiced beyond belief, against what- 
ever pertained to the neighboring Republic. I 
rejoice to do it justice. Such was the respect 
they had come to entertain for the citizen now 



V6 



deceased, that when in one of its villages* the 
announcement was made that he was dead, the 
people gave expession to their feelings in a 
salute of an hundred guns from English artillery. 
Not only in the Hulsemann letter, at the 
Plymouth dinner, and on the Greek question, 
but on numerous other occasions, Mr. Webster's 
resistless eloquence, defining the position, and 
speaking the sentiment of the American Repub- 
lic, has fulmined over Europe, 

" To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne." 

Those who make it out so clearly to their 
own satisfaction that he was guilty of such 
astounding apostacy, let them not fail to notice 
this. That his death breaks a spell of dread to 
Absoluteism. Tyrants rejoice, that Webster 
has fallen ! 

A full survey of the public life and services 
of Mr. Webster, can be taken only by his bio- 
grapher. Let those who assume such an enume- 
ration, not omit to include the following. That 
out of the treasury of his single intellect, he has 
paid another installment on the debt of civili- 
zation, we owe the mother Empire. It consists 
not alone in the light he has shed upon the sci- 

* St. Stephens. New Srohswiclr. 



24 

ences of international law, and civil polity. 
Virgil considered himself covered with glory, 
when he w;is called a pillar of the Latin tongue ; 
and English scholars, in the fine enthusiasm, 
and high magnanimity of letters, will acknow- 
ledge with feelings of admiration and gratitude, 
that even to that gorgeous temple, whose base, 
and whose dome were the productions of a 
Shakspeare, the doric contributions of the great 
American orator, have given additional strength, 
sublimity and grandeur. 

Cicero thought Plato used such language as 
Jupiter would, had he talked in the Greek The 
English of Webster suggests the same notion of 
majesty. And if Cicero had given us his idea 
of the fabled deity in the act and attitude of 
speaking, it is by no means certain that he 
would have invested him with a more imposing 
presence. Conceptions of this kind are fur- 
nished in poetry, which have been things of joy 
to the scholars of many generations. But I 
question whether votaries of letters most famil- 
iar with the heathen Jove of Homer, the Tro- 
jan leader of Virgil, the royal Dane of Shak- 
speare, and the primitive great sire of Milton, 
ever had in their mind's eye, a figure which so 



25 

impressed the heart, as when they gazed upon 
the solemn front, and eye sublime of our illus- 
trious countryman. Not only have European 
masters in sculpture hung over his bust enam- 
oured, as a model beyond even their finest ideal ; 
but persons of no culture whatever, equally 
strangers to his fame, and to the enthusiasm of 
poetry and art, have given involuntary utter- 
ance to the sentiment of the admiring Queen of 
Carthage — 

" Quem sese oreferens .'"* 

These outward indications of power, without 
example in his own age, added immensely, as 
might be supposed, to the grandeur of his spoken 
eloquence. Of other orators, the audience made 
his present speech the gauge of his intellect. 
And I suppose it often happened that Mr. Web- 
ster did his utmost; but with that massive 
amplitude of brow before you, and that vision 
and faculty divine, it was impossible to believe 
it. Bring forward what he might, you still said, 
'the greatest is behind.' Make ever so great a 
conquest, the spectators reported : 

" Yet half his strength, he put not forth, but check'd 
His thunder in mid-volley." 

* " How great does he show himself in his counlenanre !" 

4 



26 

And when the historian, glorying in his theme, 
shall have recounted to the men of another age, 
the mighty teats oi' his genius, it needs must cap 
the climax of their wonder to be told ; that such 
was his superb exterior, and so vast in promise, 
that he left his contemporaries in doubt, had he 
been called to meet a crisis so much greater, or 
grapple with an adversary so much more formi- 
dable, whether he had it not in him, to have 
achieved in one single triumph, what would 
have eclipsed the sum of his others. 

It would be very proper in the presence of 
so much aspiration for professional honor, to 
dwell at some length upon the character of the 
deceased as a lawyer. And in adequate hands, 
what more noble theme for discourse. But an 
attempt at such an analysis of his mind, or such 
summing up of his attainments by any one who 
has not devoted to the law his ' twenty years of 
vigils,' would amount in my esteem, to irreverent 
presumption. Let us leave this part of the sub- 
ject then, after expressing only what is in the 
mind of every educated man in the country. 
His published arguments at the bar, have never 
yet been spoken of as less than consummate 
models of forensic discussion. And the propor- 



27 

tion of his admirers is not small, who insist that 
this is the theatre where the prowess of his 
mind achieved its greatest feats. As has been 
said by an old man eloquent, a patriarch of col- 
lege presidents, respecting Hamilton : " he strode 
through the cause with the club of Hercules, 
and left nothing living in his path." If you 
inquire who stands at the head of the profession 
in any given city or State, different persons will 
give you a different name: whereas not onlv 
now in the generosity of funeral eulogium, but 
any time during the last third of his life, and 
that by universal acclaim, the first place at the 
Bar of the American Union was accorded to 
Webster. And when of all this assemblage there 
remains not on earth the slightest vestige of 
remembrance, posterity will marvel as we do 
now, at this amazing triumph of intellect; to 
have won the palm which cost Pinckney and 
Wirt the sustained struggle of a life ; and yet at 
the same time, in the higher path of statesman- 
ship, which they almost entirely avoided, to 
have clomb to equal pre-eminence; and in addi- 
tion to all this, and perhaps for the first time 
in the history of America, to have given a 
classic to the language. 



28 

A glance still briefer at Mr. Webster's 
achievements in the field of diplomacy. They 
contributed very greatly to extend his European 
tame, and certainly rank among his highest 
claims to the gratitude of his own country. 
The announcement of his death will come home 
with great additional effect to Americans who 
are now travelling abroad ; for they have felt, 
as they tell us, that his name ever surrounded 
them as with a guard of protection and of honor. 
His correspondence with the English Envoy in 
1842, not only shed vast light upon the law of 
nations, and affords a sublime illustration of the 
compass and divinity of human reason; but 
they cleared up many difficulties between the 
United States and England, which at inter- 
vals for half a century, had threatened to 
involve these countries in all the horrors of war. 
They were settled by this great son of peace, 
satisfactorily, and forever; without war, and 
without dishonor. And it may be urged with 
justice, that the papers which at that time ema- 
nated from the Secretary of State, contributed 
greatly to inaugurate a new era in the inter- 
course of nations. They impressed upon the 
general heart of the world, what Richelieu 



29 

utters in handing his weapon of war to his 
page: 

" Take away the sword — 
States can be saved without it!" 

It has come to be a very frequent remark, 
"What a pity our greatest men cannot be Presi- 
dent;" and surely there never has been more 
occasion for regret than in the case of Webster. 
What a superb piece of rhetoric would it have 
been, what a feast, what a banquet of reason, 
and with what a glow of patriotic pride would 
every American have perused his inaugural 
address. What annual messages would have 
illustrated the policy, and enriched the litera- 
ture of the country. What dignity, what 
strength, what splendor in his administration. 
The Presidential chair would have borrowed 
lustre from the talents and the fame of such an 
incumbent. For the first time since the line of 
Revolutionary Presidents, the highest office in 
the nation would have been adorned with its 
highest statesmanship. The Union, the Consti- 
tution, Peace, and every great interest of peace, 
would have smiled secure under a ruler at once 
so wise, so mild, so firm. There are many per- 
sons present, differing from him on questions of 



30 

public interest, who would not have voted for 
him ; but there is no one in this audience, there 
is no one in this Republic, who would not have 
contemplated with proud emotion, institutions 
which could first produce such a citizen, and 
then give him his place according to the speci- 
fic gravity of nature. 

Such would have been the general feeling at 
home. While abroad, and among foreign pow- 
ers, as it was said of Washington, it is not pro- 
bable that any prince or potentate of his day, 
would have commanded more respect and con- 
sideration. Throned emperors and kings would 
have read in this grand embodiment, all the 
elements that mould up our conception of a con- 
summate magistrate : 

" Ami by these claim their greatness, not by blood." 

It is usual to say on such occasions that the Pre- 
sidency could have added nothing to his fame. 
Such a reflection may possibly be of some solace 
to afflicted feeling, but it certainly will not stand 
the test of logical analysis. Mr. Webster, it is 
true, was a more eminent man than any Presi- 
dent of his day ; indeed the Secretaries of State 
for many years, form a more distinguished line 
of Statesmen than the Presidents. Still the 



31 

highest post in the government would have 
made even Webster's talents more conspicu- 
ous. "Pyramids are pyramids in vales." Doubt- 
less; yet however great the structure, it is 
imposing in proportion to the elevation of its 
site. Mr. Webster, nevertheless, amassed a repu- 
tation on so huge a scale, that any such regrets 
on his account are almost unconscionable. Five 
million votes, fiftv million votes, could not have 
done for him, what he did for himself. The 
truth is, that regrets of this kind, and indeed 
this whole aggregate of sorrow, spreading the 
Commonwealth as with a pall, is not for the 
dead, but for the living. And I, the humblest 
of all my fellow-citizens, — lifted into notice but 
for an hour by this sad occasion, and soon to 
return as is my wont, to the pursuits of retire- 
ment — with no title to consideration, save as I 
utter the words of truth — the least of all priests 
in this vast service of the grave ; yet as such, 
possessing the ear of the congregation assem- 
bled — I assume to summon the American com- 
munity into the forum of its own conscience. I 
arraign it before the bar of the world. I anti- 
cipate the verdict of posterity. Ye who have 
ears to hear, and hearts to understand, incline to 



32 

what I say, for I speak no idle words. Hearken 
to the judgment of your children, and your chil- 
dren's children, to be affirmed by every succeed- 
ing age. And this it is: That in withholding 
from one who partook so largely of the spirit, 
and the wisdom, and the patriotism of Washing- 
ton, the highest power for good which the Con- 
stitution entrusts to a single citizen, — A duty 
has not been performed. A work of patriotism has 
not been completed. 

Friends and fellow-citizens : If such thoughts 
afflict us with compunctious visitings, and full 
well I know they do, let us remember that they 
are of use only as they beget resolutions for the 
future. For the past, they are unavailing. 
Daniel Webster, is no longer among the living. 
The glory of the Forum, the chief of the Senate, 
the mighty minister, great man of language, 

" Farewell, a long farewell, to all thy greatness !" 

That drama of vigorous heroism is closed. On 
a stage, not darkened, but rather of heightened 
splendor, the curtain has fallen. Not as the 
ordinary great ; nor yet as Socrates, like a philo- 
sopher ; but with the sublimer exit of a Chris- 
tian, he has gone from our sight forever. Oh, 
if tliis were not the solemn fact — if you had but 



Q 

■ > 



just awakened from sleep — if you were assured 
that these impressions of death at Marshfield, of 
the ensign of the Republic everywhere in crape, 
of ten thousand men at a private funeral ; that 
these were not reality, but only the dismal 
fancies of a dream, — that instead of being in his 
grave, Daniel Webster was still at his post, as a 
faithful sentinel on the watch-towers of Liberty 
— if you could hear there in the darkness of the 
night his veteran footstep — especially if you 
should ask as was our wont in a moment of 
fear, " Watchman, what of the night ?" and your 
ear should suddenly be greeted with those grand 
old tones, so full, resonant and joyous — All's 
well, all's wdl" — Oh ! how this whole auditory 
would start to its feet; and what a burst of 
transport would shake this solid building to its 
base ! But alas, these tears we are shedding, 
they are not the tears of joy, but of grief. And 
what event but the death of Webster, could 
have drawn from us so many ? Had each of us 
lost his father, the stroke could hardly have 
fallen with more subduing effect. Why, here 
we touch the secret — We have lost the second 
Father of his Country. God in heaven, be thou 
the father of an orphaned people ! 



:J4 

When in July, two years ago, death removed 
an incumbent of the Executive, so strong in the 
confidence of his countrymen, you well remem- 
ber how bitter and how universal was the sense 
of bereavement. It is no disparagement to say 
that his great office was worthily supplied by 
his immediate successor. What too often had 
been only an ingenious stroke of flattery, might 
have been quoted in this instance of accession, 
with honesty and truth : 

" Sol occubuit ; iiox nulla secula est."* 

But now, ere yon moon had four times filled 
her horn, we are called upon to suffer the double 
eclipse of Clay and Webster. In lesser lights 
indeed the horizon is not wanting. And such is 
the tried prudence of the people themselves, 
and such, if they avail themselves of it, the 
reflected radience of luminaries no longer seen, 
that I do not say they will stumble and fall. 
But alas, alas ! how long may we have to await 
the appearance again of two orbs of such mag- 
nitude and splendor, to fill our hearts with joy 
and our country with glory ! 

I know indeed the last accents of his lips — 
u I still live;" and I have marked with sensi- 



■ ' The sun set; hut no niijlil followed." 



35 



bility the eagerness of the nation to extract 
from them something to solace its smitten feel- 
ings. Already in the valley of the shadow ol 
death, it was in his mind only, that the soul had 
not yet glided from the shore of its mortality. 
In that solemn instant, it was farthest from him 
possible to indulge the thought of the ancient, 
" vivit enim, vivet que semper." Yet the bleeding- 
heart of the nation, so lonesome and desolate, is 
surely warranted in cherishing such a sentiment, 
All that was mortal of Daniel Webster, is indeed 
dead. In the presence of a great cloud of wit- 
nesses, it was committed to the sacred soil of 
the Pilgrims. But his words, his works, his 
wisdom ; the influence of his example, patriotism 
and deeds — these were not so interred. Heaven 
vouchsafes to a few superior natures a life to 
come, even in this world. There are those who 
rule us from their urns. Yes, 

" Thou art mighty yet !" 
Thy spirit walks abroad." 

Walk ever abroad, illustrious shade! Thy 
counsels and precepts are engraven on our 
memory ; but oh, if in the economy of God, it 

is allowed to exert a directer influence if 

patriots who die the death of the righteous are 



36 

ever permitted to revisit their earthly seats — 
then ever venerated spirit, infuse into thy coun- 
trymen yet more of thy prudence, self-devotion 
and wisdom ! 

The older editions of Mr. Webster's speeches, 
have on the back of the volume, a gold leaf 
figure of the Capitol at Washington. There is 
a fitness in this device. Consider how com- 
pletely identified are his name and efforts with 
that great palace of the laws. With the House 
of Representatives, the Chamber of the Senate, 
the Supreme Federal Judicatory, and with the 
wing in course of erection, as orator at the lay- 
ing of its corner-stone. Then what an expan- 
sive spirit of patriotism pervades those volumes : 
a school of rhetoric for the nation, instinct with 
nationality. In this respect, indeed, they are 
but the counterpart of his own feelings and 
character. Party and sectional foes might 
whisper suspicion with their lips ; they might 
impugn his motives; they might wound his 
honor; and yet — who but one of his country- 
men would credit it ; and who that is a coun- 
tryman disputes it? — it had come to be a piece 
of the American heart to believe, that Webster 
would see that the Republic suffered no harm. 



37 

That not only her interests, but her honor 
and her fame would come out of the fierv 
ordeal, as he himself would say, without the 
smell of fire upon her garments. You have 
all doubtless met the verses which represent a 
captain's son on board of a ship in a terrific 
tempest. Veteran sailors are in tears of des- 
pair, and marvelling at his calmness, they ask 
the boy, "Are you not afraid?" The noble 
little fellow, a very picture of surprise, glancing 
at the stern, asks his interrogators, " Is not my 
father at the helm?" Such was the abiding faith 
of the nation, in this more than Palinurus of the 
State. Whatever might be the peril, how dark 
soever the heavens, 

*•' Though the strain'd mast should quiver as a reed," 

the people still asked, if you expressed alarm, 
" Is not Webster at the helm ?" 

Such was the universal sense of his fidelity 
and patriotism. Nor was it over estimated. 
Love of country, and of the whole country, was 
the ever present, and ever paramount passion of 
his being; it penetrated, and pervaded, and 
engrossed it. Applying the entire energies of 
his robust, luminous, and comprehensive intel- 
lect, to the high ministries of its constitution, 



38 

it was the great mission of his life, to defend and 

expound it, to illustrate and hallow. His first 
entry into public life was in the service of the 
whole Union ; and the summons of death found 
hi ni still in its harness. No sooner had his eve 
fallen on her constitution, than he folded it to 
his heart as the first love of his boyhood ; and 
the latest stroke of his pen, ere it must be laid 
down forever, attests his loyalty and devotion. 
And having indentined himself conspicuously 
with every great interest at home, and more 
than any citizen of his time, enhanced her repu- 
tation abroad; in age, as in manhood,' and in 
youth, still earlier than the sun in toiling for her 
glory ; having thus exhausted his strength, his 
spirit, and his life, in the service of the country 
at large ; he bequeathed at his death, to every 
American citizen, to every several man, in one 
massive and sumptuous assemblage, the rich 
inheritance of his name, his w T orks, his example 
and renown. 

I am afraid it is one of the solemn lessons 
of history that unto all states, as to men, it is 
appointed once to die. Certainly none now in 
existence gives more vigorous promise than that 
of England. And yet her eloquent historian 



39 

has permitted himself to anticipate a time when 
some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the 
midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a bro- 
ken arch of London bridge, to sketch the ruins 
of St. Paul's. It is the most earnest prayer of 
every heart before me that the people may prove 
themselves so intelligent, virtuous and prudent, 
that the Capitol of the American Republic will 
stand forever. This, my friends, at least is 
sure ; that while that great temple of Freedom 
does stand, it shall be as one vast Cenotaph to 
Webster. And as a sight of that hallowed 
dome, shall first recall to the beholder the mem- 
ory of Webster; so shall come first to his lip, 
the epitaph now on the general heart of the 
nation: Well done, good and faithful servant. 



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